


brother let me (bring you home)

by rarmaster



Series: (who's gonna) Save the World [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII, Mother 3, Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (none of these spoilers will ruin your experience of either game tho imo), Gen, Save the World crossover, also cw: brainwashing, mega spoilers for mother 3!!!, technically spoilers for undertale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Part of the Save the World Crossover. There are rips in the time-space continuum, and these kids gotta try and survive (and, maybe put a stop to it).
Lucas and his friends end up somewhere familiar, and end up finding someone equally so...





	

**Author's Note:**

> wow! look at what I'm finally cross-posting to AO3.
> 
> More deets about the crossover [here](http://stwcrossover.tumblr.com/about). More deets about this team (team A) [here](http://stwcrossover.tumblr.com/teama)! Notes about the fic [here](http://rarwrites.tumblr.com/post/143187526917/notes-for-parte-uno-de-mi-big-kids-fic-saving)??
> 
> some basics: Lucas was pulled from his world sometime after he learned PSI, but before meeting Kumatora or Duster. Selphie was pulled from hers after the events of FF8. Chara was pulled from theirs after Undertale concluded. Silver was pulled from his BEFORE Sonic 06 takes place.

Lucas let out a grunt of pain and surprise as the portal dropped him and his friends on their faces. There was no telling with these portals—these rips in the time-space continuum—on where they’d drop you or how, but he always hated it when he was dumped unceremoniously into a new world. At least the drop hadn’t been too bad.

He reached up to gingerly feel his nose. It stung a little, but it was still intact. No blood, no nothing…

That taken care of, Lucas pushed himself up the rest of the way and looked his friends over. Chara, who landed the closest to him, was swearing under their breath, but didn’t look any worse for wear—though they nervously checked the knife shoved into their belt to make sure it was still there. Silver had landed the furthest away, but he was fine as well. Selphie had landed the most gracefully of them all—that is, on her butt instead of on her face. Or, maybe she’d just been the first to straighten herself out. She was tutting over a scrape on her knee, but didn’t seem harmed otherwise, either.

“Is everyone okay?” Silver asked.

“Fine,” Chara grumbled quickly. That was kind, for them.

“I’m okay,” Lucas said.

“Doing just fine over here!” Selphie chimed, as chipper as always. She stopped studying her knee and hopped to her feet. “I guess we should get going then, if we’re all taken care of!” She sent a squinty look up to where the portal had probably been—it wasn’t there anymore, of course. They were usually one way tickets. “Geeze, where do you think it let us out?”

“Who knows,” Silver answered, getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

Lucas pushed himself up, then offered a hand out to Chara, cautiously—they scowled at him a second, but that was normal. And after a careful breath, they _did_ take his hand to help themselves up.

Despite Chara’s rough exterior, they really _were_ a nice kid. Or, well, a _decent_ one anyway. And if they were rough a lot of the time, who was to blame them? They’d been ripped away from their home and their friends. Lucas had been ripped away from his home too, so he understood _that_ sentiment—he did not have any close friends, though, nor much family left. Even if his dad was still around, he wasn’t _around_ around _._

Silver didn’t seem to mind so much about being ripped from his home—he found almost every place they visited absolutely fascinating, and didn’t talk much about his own time period—but he did miss his friend Blaze a lot. Selphie? Selphie missed her friends too, but she was coping okay. She was appointed leader of the group, actually, due to being the oldest.

Of course, she was only older by five years (or five years older than Lucas and Chara anyway. There was no telling how old Silver was, seeing as he was a walking, talking _hedgehog_ with psychokinetic abilities.) But that made enough difference. Enough.

“We’re underground,” Chara said, with conviction. “I don’t care how well they try and filter the air in this place—” They gestured at the walls around them, which Lucas had no point of reference for, but which Selphie and Chara would’ve said looked like a hospital or a creepy lab from a sci-fi movie. “—but you can’t get rid of that musty underground smell.”

Lucas sniffed the air experimentally, as Chara let go of him. Then he froze.

He’d been worried about his friends at first, and maybe this wasn’t something that easy to notice right away, but now that he was _thinking_ about it—

There was a… he wouldn’t call it a smell, in the air, but a _feel._ A feel of PSI and the earth singing around him, the feel of a thudding heartbeat under his feet. Legend said the heartbeat belonged to the dragon that slept under Nowhere Islands. None of the people in Tazmily had ever considered it more than just legend. Lucas wasn’t sure what he thought, but the feel of that heartbeat was so comforting he was afraid he might cry.

“We’re in my world,” Lucas whispered, in surprise, in awe. He pressed a hand to his cheeks, trying to stop the tears before they started.

“Your world!?” Selphie asked, delightedly. She clapped her hands together. “Ohh, I always wanted to visit your world, Lucas!”

“Is it the right time period?” Silver asked.

Lucas looked around, not there was much to tell from dark grey walls, dim lighting, and a single cart pushed to the side of the hallway. They weren’t in Tazmily, and he’d never seen a place like this before.

“I… I don’t know,” Lucas answered, truthfully. “This place is like nothing I’ve ever seen, but, there _were_ a lot of strange things going on in Tazmily when I left…”

“Well, maybe once we get out of here,” Chara said, like they were eager to do so. “Once you see the sun and, maybe your town, you’ll be able to tell, right?”

“Um, probably,” Lucas agreed, though a bit reluctantly. If he got to Tazmily, he was sure he’d be able to tell, but he couldn’t remember _any_ buildings like this around Tazmily. Either a lot had changed, or they were far, far from home.

“Alright! Getting out of here sounds like a great plan.” Selphie punched the air and beamed at all three of them. “Which way should we go? I think Lucas should pick, since this is his world!”

“Uh… okay,” Lucas said. He felt a little sweaty, being put on the spot like this. He considered the two directions they had to go, each seeming to extend for eternity in the dimness. Sighing, and figuring it couldn’t matter much, he pointed forward. “Th… this way.”

“Let’s go!!” Selphie sang.

They started moving.

 

There wasn’t, really, anything to find for a while. The dimness never got any brighter. The only two doors they found lead to a storage closet, and the other, a bathroom.

Chara was on edge the whole time, and got increasingly more that way as they progressed. Silver, who could usually find beauty in the strangest things, had nothing good to say about this place. Even Selphie said it kind of gave her the creeps.

Lucas wasn’t entirely sure how to sum up his feelings. On one hand, it was nice to breathe the air on his home planet again. On the other, he _hated_ how mechanical this place felt. Tazmily had always lived off of the earth. This? This place had nothing to do with the earth.

“Alright, which way now?” Silver asked, as they reach yet another fork in the road. This one dead-ended into a wall, but again the dimness spread into infinity on both the right and left sides beyond it.

“It’s Chara’s turn to pick!” Selphie said.

Chara took a step forward to better assess the two paths they had to take, a thumb running over the hilt of their knife in their belt. It was a comforting action, Lucas knew. If touching them wouldn’t have made them feel worse, he’d have put a hand on their arm to soothe them.

“I think we should go—”

“This way…” Lucas mumbled, like his voice was not his own. He’d moved to stand, staring down the right path, without even realizing it.

“What’s that way?” Selphie demanded. There wasn’t really _anger_ in her voice, but maybe a bit of impatience. Probably just because he’d picked out of turn.

“I…” Lucas began, but wasn’t sure how to finish.

He wasn’t even sure how to describe it.

It was like something was pulling at him. Pulling in his chest, in the thrum of his PSI under his skin. Or, perhaps _calling_ would have been the better way to put it. Someone calling his name, shouting for—

Lucas stopped the thought there, shaking the memory of Claus out of his mind.

No one was calling for him.

…But there _was_ something pulling at him.

“I’ve just got… a feeling,” Lucas explained to his friends. His mouth opened to fill in after that with more words, but he didn’t have any more to say.

“Well, acting on a feeling is better than just wandering around like idiots,” Chara said, not bothered that he’d stolen their chance to pick which direction to go next. “For all we know, we could’ve been walking ourselves in circles.”

“Then let’s go check it out!” Silver agreed.

“Lucas?” Selphie called. When Lucas blinked and looked over to her, she beamed at him. “Come on! Lead the way!”

Lucas nodded. He didn’t even have to think about stepping forward—he just was, feet already moving, like they had a mind of their own. The tug in him seemed to grow a little stronger with each step.  He followed it diligently, persistently, listening with everything in him and in his PSI.

“Do you think Lucas’s feeling is gonna lead us outside?” came Selphie’s voice, from somewhere behind him.

Lucas wasn’t sure how much time had passed, how long they’d been walking. Even Selphie’s voice seemed distant, drowned out by the pull in his chest.

“Shh!” Chara scolded. “Let Lucas focus!”

The feeling inside him was growing urgent. Lucas quickened his pace.

Wherever this feeling was taking him, he needed to get there fast.

 

“Lucas!” Chara said sharply, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Lucas blinked. He was standing in front of an elevator, ready to press the button to call it. He looked at Chara—their face etched in anger and urgency—then past them to his other friends. Silver was pressed up against a wall, while Selphie was watching down the hallway nervously.

It was a little brighter here, compared to the dimness of the rest of this place.

“I don’t know where we are, Lucas, or if this place is abandoned,” Chara hissed. “But if we’re going to run into someone, it’ll be because we take an elevator!”

“They have a point,” Selphie chimed. Silver didn’t have anything to comment.

“We can handle anyone we run into—” Lucas began, but Chara cut him off with a shake of their head.

“Do we really want to have to fight people just because we’re snooping somewhere we shouldn’t be? Come on,” they nodded to an opening in the wall on the right of the elevator. “There’s a stairwell right there. We’ll just take the stairs.”

Lucas blinked a few times, turning it over in his mind. Would they have time to…? No, but, Chara was right. But maybe… they _wouldn’t_ run into…

Lucas took in Chara’s heavy stare one more time, along with the way Selphie stood with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face—even if not directed at him. Silver still didn’t look like he had an opinion, but, Lucas knew he wasn’t going to get either Chara or Selphie to budge on this.

“Stairs it is,” he relented.

It was a good thing too, he discovered, when they reached the floor the feeling in him lead them to. This hallway was _much_ better lit, and had a lot more doors. And, a vending machine, right next to the elevator?

“Maybe it _is_ a hospital…?” Selphie suggested, though she kept her voice down.

Lucas shrugged. He didn’t even know what a hospital was.

“Doesn’t smell like one,” Chara argued. “Smells… a lot grosser.”

“That sign over there says exit,” Silver said, pointing. He didn’t think to be quiet, but, for right now, there didn’t look like there was anyone around. Yet.

Lucas’s friends looked to him in askance, but Lucas slowly shook his head. He pointed the way opposite Silver was pointing.

Chara groaned, thumbing their knife a little more aggressively. Silver seemed to sigh. Selphie shrugged, though, and waved in the direction Lucas pointed.

“Lead the way,” she said.

They only turned the corner when they were spotted by a pair of Pigmasks—Lucas had seen plenty of _them_ before being snatched from Tazmily. Both of them were guarding a door shaped like a hexagon. There was a window in the middle of it, but for now, Lucas could pay no attention to that.

“Hey!” the Pigmask on the right shouted. “No trespassers! How’d you even get in here!?”

He’d hardly finished before the one on the left jumped and spluttered: “C-Commander?? I thought you were already—!?”

“What?” The Pigmask on the right turned to his friend. “Bill, come on, that can’t be the Commander!”

“It looks just like him!!”

“But the Commander’s already—”

“Maybe King P. ordered a new—”

“What, so we have _two_ Commanders now!?”

Lucas and his friends all exchanged glances, trying to decide what to do.

“We have to get past them,” Lucas whispered.

Chara reached for their knife. Lucas hastily shook his head. He didn’t _like_ the Pigmasks, but they were human! He wasn’t going to let Chara…

Silver, taking the initiative, pushed past Lucas and Chara both and grabbed the Pigmasks with his psychokinesis.

“Hey!”

“Whoa, what the—!?”

Silver slammed them against each other, then turned and raised them over his head. He tossed them down the hall.

“That takes care of _that_ ,” he declared haughtily, dusting off his hands.

“Let’s just hope they don’t sound an alarm!” Selphie yelped.

Silver’s smug smile vanished. Apparently, that hadn’t occurred to him. He shrugged helplessly.

“Well, whatever!” Lucas said. “What we’re here for is in that room—let’s just hurry up and get it over with, and then get outta here.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Chara’s voice was laced with impatience, along with relief.

Lucas went over to the door, and stood on tiptoes to see through the window, wanting to get a sense of what was inside before they barged in there.

Lucas did not have the words to name it, but it was an operating room. There were a few Pigmasks inside, a pair of guys in labcoats, and—

His heart stopped in his chest.

Strapped to the hexagonal operating table in the middle of the room was his _brother, Claus._

There was no mistaking that mop of red hair, that face that was a mirror of his own.

(Now he understood why the Pigmasks had called him _Commander,_ though that realization brought a pit and a twist to his stomach.)

“Lucas?” Silver asked. “What’s wrong?”

Chara pushed Lucas out of the way and peeked through the window themselves. They only looked for a second before recoiling, looking about ready to be sick.

“What’s—?” Selphie began.

“My b-brother,” Lucas said. It felt like there was a rock in his throat he had to talk around. Something like anger and sickness both boiled in his gut. “Th- they have my- b—” His stomach wrenched hard. He couldn’t get the image of Claus’s lifeless face, wires and computers all around him, out of his mind. “Wh- what were they _d- doing_ to him!?”

“ _That’s_ your brother!?” Selphie gasped, having moved to look through the window herself.

“We have to get him out of there!” Chara gripped their knife firmly, having drawn it from their belt. They shook where they stood, and sounded twice as angry as Lucas, twice as angry as they had any right to feel—that wasn’t _their_ brother. “I don’t know what they’re doing to him, Lucas, but we have to—”

“I’m all for that, but we may have a problem,” Selphie sighed in her distinct _uh-oh_ voice. She turned to them, tapping at the panel on the wall beside the door. “Door’s locked, and I have no clue what code to even try, or how quickly I can hack it. If I can hack it.”

“Geeze, don’t you guys even _know_ me?” Silver scoffed. He walked up to the door and cracked his knuckles. “With my psychokinesis, I can just pull these things open!”

“Oh yeah, _duh!_ ” Selphie swiftly slapped at her forehead with her fingers. “I can’t believe I forgot! But, we should probably come up with a plan first, shouldn’t we?”

“I- I can probably… the Pigmasks…” Lucas said. Or, he tried to say. He ended up leaving out a few crucial words like _PK Love_ and _take out,_ but, his friends understood.

“I can threaten one of those scientists at knifepoint,” Chara snarled.

Selphie reached in her bag for her nunchucks. “And _I_ can make sure the other one doesn’t cause any problems,” she said confidently.

“So I’ll open the door, and, provide whatever backup I can,” Silver said, with a nod. “Alright, you guys ready?”

“Ready!” Selphie declared.

Chara nodded, a dangerous glint in their eyes.

“U-Uh-huh,” was all Lucas could get out. He started gathering his PSI to him, knowing the sooner he could cast it the better. He just hoped the meager form of PK Love he knew was enough.

Silver stepped towards the door again, reaching out his hands. Each half of the door (it was one of those sliding ones) glowed green. Silver concentrated a second, then pried the doors apart, metal crumpling when the doors themselves would not budge.

Lucas took a deep breath and ran in once there was enough of a gap for him to fit through, seeing as he was the first line of attack. The Pigmasks were already running to the door.

“PK LOVE!” Lucas shouted, letting the PSI loose.

It was a burst of rainbows that released from beneath his skin. It swirled around the Pigmasks and then threw them backwards, squealing.

“Hey, what do you guys think you’re doing!?” came a shout from behind Lucas. “Who let them in here!”

Lucas, though he wanted to look, watched the Pigmasks warily, readying his PSI again, just in case. None of the Pigmasks seemed intent on getting back up, but…

“I’ll watch ‘em,” Silver said, coming up beside Lucas. “You go help your brother.”

Lucas nodded rapidly, and turned to face the rest of the room.

One of the two scientists was on his knees, rubbing his head. Selphie stood triumphantly above him. Chara had the other scientist at knifepoint. And Claus…

Lucas walked over to him with cautious steps, trying to process what he was seeing. Claus lay there, eyes closed, still strapped to the table. He was stripped to his waist. He was missing an arm, metal and wires attached to where it ended, and for right now, sticking out like something was supposed to be attached to them. There were three jagged scars over his left eye, and he was as white as a sheet.

“C-Claus...?” Lucas whispered. He pressed his hands against the table below Claus. It was cold and unpleasant to touch, but he hovered over his brother anyway, standing by Claus’s good arm.

Claus didn’t stir. Lucas wasn’t sure if he should expect him to.

“C’mon, spill it!” Chara said. “What were you doing to him? What’s with all these wires huh!?”

“I-I-I have no reason to t-tell you!” the scientist stammered.

“You don’t want this knife to go somewhere _unpleasant_ , would you?” Chara threatened. Lucas did not pull his attention from Claus, but he could imagine the smile on Chara’s face well enough. “No? Then tell me what you were doing!”

“W-we were just applying the l-latest adjustments King P. asked for!” the scientist yelped. Then he paused. When he continued, there was sly note in his voice. “Y- You wouldn’t want to be caught messing with King P.’s favorite chimera, by the way. W-Whoever messes with King P. is in for some _serious_ payback!”

Chara sneered. “King P.? Chimera? Lucas, you have any idea what the hell he’s talking about?”

Lucas shook his head. None of those words rang a bell.

He stared at Claus a second longer, then looked up to Chara, and the scientist they were holding hostage. “Can you wake him up?”

The scientist spluttered. “D- Didn’t you just _hear_ me!”

“Listen, I have no idea who King P. is,” Lucas said, scowling. “All I know is _this_ is my brother, and I want to get him out of here!”

“Get him _out_ of here!? You can’t just _kidnap_ the—”

“Maybe you didn’t hear my friend right,” Chara interrupted, bringing their knife dangerously close to the scientist’s face. “We aren’t leaving without Claus.” There was a deadly note in their voice, punctuated by the too-wide smile that spread across their lips. If Chara was good at anything, it was intimidation. “So hurry up and _wake him up!_ ”

“Y-Yes!” the scientist hastily saluted. Then he eyeballed the knife pointed at him. “Uh… R-Robert? Could you?”

The scientist on the floor, that Selphie had taken down, groaned, but slowly nodded. “Yeah, I can…” he mumbled.

He dragged himself to his feet and over to one of the computers positioned around the operating table. He sent a single nervous look at Lucas as he did, and Lucas swallowed, noting the fear in his eyes. He tapped at the computer, the restraints released, there was a noise, and then Claus was shifting and scrunching up his face, groaning lowly. Something like a smile and a sob caught in Lucas’s mouth. Claus always sounded like that when he didn’t want to get up in the mornings.

“Claus?” Lucas asked, anxiously.

Claus blinked his eyes open. Lucas tried not to recoil. The left one had been replaced with something mechanical, whirring, red.

 “Claus… are you- are you okay?” Lucas asked.

Claus squinted up at him. “Who’s—?”

Lucas blinked back. Something tugged in his chest, something he didn’t like. “Claus it’s- it’s me,” he said. “Lucas. Your brother. Don’t you remember?”

Clause kept squinting. “Lucas…?”

Recognition didn’t light in his eyes, but he wasn’t shrinking away from Lucas or anything. Lucas wasn’t sure which would have hurt more. This blank look and complete lack of memory wasn’t sitting very well in his stomach.

“Lucas, are you okay?” Silver asked, from Lucas’s left. Lucas didn’t turn to him, still watching Claus.

“Shh, give him some space!” Selphie hissed.

“Here.” The scientist, Robert, handed a black jacket across the table to Lucas.

Lucas stared at it confusion, but then realized it was probably for Claus. Claus was sitting up, at any rate—either a coincidence, or a part of a procedure Lucas knew nothing about. Lucas helped him put it on, not that Claus needed much help.

“Am I done already?” Claus asked, swiveling his head to look between the two scientists. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Chara, and the scientist they were threatening.

“There’s been a change of plans,” Robert muttered, quietly. He was fetching something from the table along the back wall.

Claus scowled a little deeper. “Change of plans…?”

“We’re, uh, we’re here to…” Lucas swallowed. His mouth felt very dry. “We’re—”

“Commander,” Robert said.

Claus reached out his stub of an arm on cue. Robert shuffled over to reach it, bringing himself much closer to Lucas than it looked like he’d prefer to be. To Claus, he attached a metal _cannon._ Lucas tried not to stare, because that was rude, but it was _hard._ A _cannon_! What had _happened_ to his brother?

The cannon wasn’t all, either. Another trip to the wall and back brought a metal box and more wires. Lucas had to step back so Robert could affix the box to his brother’s back. It looked to be held there by a combination of the belt around Claus’s waist and some straps on his jacket that Lucas could not quite make out. The wires attached to the cannon.

“W- We’re here to rescue you, Claus,” Lucas tried, now.

Claus turned to Lucas, eyebrows raised like he couldn’t even _believe_ such a notion. “Rescue me?” he laughed. “I don’t need rescuing!”

“B-but—”

Lucas looked hastily to his friends, to Selphie. Selphie always knew what to do. And, she knew—they all knew!—that Pigmasks were bad news. He’d told them plenty. He’d told them about the Drago, and all the other animals of the forest that had gotten… _changed._ And then there was what they’d done to _Claus_ …

“I’m doing just _fine_ here, Lucas!” Claus shouted, hopping off the table and onto his feet. His cannon arm hung limply at his side, but he swiped the other one through the air. “Master Porky _needs_ me. I’m _important_ here, Lucas, I’m—”

Lucas just shook his head, not sure what to say, not sure what to do. His heart thudded like a drum in his chest. What was Claus even going on about!?

But… Though everything else Claus had said was nonsense, he’d said Lucas’s name. With conviction. Like he’d remembered it.

Lucas swallowed hard. “Claus, please, I- I know a lot must’ve happened to you—”

“ _Who’s Claus?_ ”

Lucas staggered back, as if struck. For Claus to not remember his brother was one thing, but to not remember his own _name_? What had they _done_ to him?

“Maybe they brainwashed him,” Selphie suggested, having noticed Lucas’s surprise.

“Brainwashed?” Lucas repeated. The word was foreign, vile on his tongue.

Chara turned their attention to the scientist they held, stabbing their knife in his direction. “Well?” they asked. “Did you?”

“I- I can’t answer that!”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Chara said. They drew back their knife to thrust.

“No, wait! He really can’t!” Robert shouted. “We- we don’t know any more than you do!”

“Oh yeah!?” Selphie demanded. She stepped towards Robert, hands on her hips, scowling. “Then what were those _adjustments_ you were talking about? And the machines! What are they all for!?”

Robert paled.

“W-Well...!”

“Forget about it,” Lucas said. He didn’t want to know. “Let’s just get out of here.” He reached for Claus. “Come on, Claus. Please.”

Claus pushed Lucas’s hand away. “No, Lucas! I’m fine! I’m—” All confidence on his face scrunched up into confusion. He swayed a little where he stood. “I’m… Claus? My name is Claus!?”

Lucas moved to steady Claus, and this time, Claus let him.

“You’re right, Lucas,” Selphie said. “Let’s get out of here. Silver, you remember which way the exit is?”

“I think so!”

Lucas looped Claus’s good arm around his neck, and together they staggered after Selphie and Silver.

“No funny business!” Lucas heard Chara say, and then Chara was running up beside him. They sent him a look, like they thought they should help but didn’t want to.

“It’s fine,” Lucas told them. He was handling Claus alright, and he knew how Chara hated touching people. Besides, he wasn’t sure how Chara _could_ help, seeing as Claus’s other arm was a cannon. “If I really need help, I’ll just ask Silver.”

Chara nodded. They still looked like they felt bad though. Lucas sighed, but there wasn’t time to worry about it.

“Claus…” Claus muttered, as if trying to get a feel again for the sound and shape of the word. “ _Claus_. I’m- I’m _Claus_ …?” There was still that note of confusion in his voice. Like he couldn’t believe it.

“You’re Claus,” Lucas affirmed, because that was all he could think of to do. “Y- You’re my brother. You remember me, don’t you? Lucas?”

Claus didn’t answer for a long moment. His feet dragged along the ground. “I… maybe. I remember _something_.”

“This way!” Silver said, a ways ahead of Lucas and Claus. “I see the sign! Oh—uh oh!”

Lucas looked up to see what Silver was complaining about, and saw a line of Pigmasks blocking off the way forward.

“See, Bill!” one of them said. “I told you that kid wasn’t the Commander!”

“Well, he looks just like him!”

“Nevermind that, what are they doing with our _real_ Commander!?” said another Pigmask, from behind the two in front.

“You aren’t going to let them kidnap you, are you, Commander!?” another called.

“Yeah Commander! They’re no match for you! Show them what you’ve got!!”

The Pigmasks all started cheering for Claus, egging him on. Claus got very rigid beside Lucas, breathing heavily.

“Claus,” Lucas said, because he had to say something. “I- I… I don’t know what’s… We aren’t gonna _hurt_ you Claus. Me and my friend’s aren’t gonna hurt you, we’re just trying to—”

Claus shoved Lucas off of him, pushing him to the ground. Lucas cried out in pain and surprise. Claus took a step forward, hefting his cannon, using his good arm to support it. Something hummed inside the canon.

For the life of him, Lucas couldn’t tell if Claus was aiming at the Pigmasks, or Silver.

The cannon went off.

A beam of light shot from it, streaked down the hallway.

It hit the ground between all the Pigmasks and exploded, sending them all flying.

“C-Claus!” Lucas gasped, relief welling up in his chest. He scrambled to his feet. “Did- did you…!?” He wasn’t sure what he was trying to ask, but Claus didn’t give him the chance.

“I still don’t know what’s going on,” Claus said, like each word was a struggle to get out. He let his cannon arm fall back to his side. “But I- I trust you, Lucas. So- So I…”

He wavered where he stood. Lucas hastily rushed to support him again.

“Selphie!” Lucas called, grunting with the effort of keeping Claus upright. It had been one thing, when he’d just been leading Claus. It was another, when he had to support almost all of Claus’s weight.

“You got it!”

Selphie came up on Claus’s other side. She had to bend down, because of the height difference, but she got Claus’s other arm around her alright, and didn’t complain about the cannon. They kept trudging forward.

“Why not just ask Silver to lift him?” Chara asked. “It’d be easier! Faster, too.”

“Silver’d be better at taking out any more of those piggy guys we run into,” Selphie argued. “And, he knows where he’s going!”

“He’s just following the signs,” Chara grumbled, but didn’t protest besides that.

“There… There are more Pigmasks… _outside,_ ” Claus warned. “You- We- If we’re trying to get away…”

“What we need is one of those portals!” Chara said. “Selphie?”

“Little busy, but the device is in my bag—see if you can dig it out.”

Chara grumbled some more, but did as told. From Selphie’s bag on her hip, they pulled out a rectangular device with a screen on it. Selphie had built it (or, tailored it, Lucas couldn’t remember) so that it would track the rips in the time-space continuum that they were using to get around. From the way Chara glared at it and turned it over in their hands, they had no idea how to use it.

“The blue button,” Selphie said. “Just push it, and, uh, that’ll point us to the nearest one. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully?!”

“It’s hard to track a rip in _time_ as well as space!” Selphie argued.

Chara muttered a crude mimic of Selphie—which if Lucas heard, Selphie must’ve as well. Before Selphie could scold them, they straightened in surprise and let out a small gasp.

“Uh, left!” they called, running up to Silver. “We gotta go left here!”

“But the sign says—”

“There’s a portal to the left!!! Like, _literally!_ ”

“Oh!”

Silver didn’t argue anymore. When Lucas and Selphie and Claus got closer, they saw why.

Chara had said literally, and they meant it.

Immediately down the left hallway was a ripple in the air that denoted one of the portals. And, thankfully, it was close to the ground.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Chara said, jumping through. Silver followed after them.

“What’s…?” Claus asked, pulling away from the portal slightly. No surprise. Lucas would’ve been worried, too, if he’d been in Claus’s position.

“Don’t worry,” Selphie told him, before Lucas could. “It’s totally safe!”

Lucas decided now was not the best time to point out that _totally safe_ was probably an overstatement. Oh well. He just hoped whatever was on the other side was friendlier.

The three of them went through.


End file.
